Filming establishing shots.

The filming of our establishing shots for our sequence went well today. It took us much longer than anticipated just like our other attempts at filming. This was mainly due to the fact that we hadn't tried these shots before so we took various from different angles in order to have various shots to work with and to include within our footage. We realised as we went along also how certain shots which we had planned on using wouldn't work and instead we needed to do other shots from different angles, our advantage this time was that we had used the equipment previously and were now a lot more confident with using it and were able to try different shots as we now had more experience with the camera and we're starting to learn what does and doesn't work and how to make the shots look better.


I am now beginning to add the footage to what we have already edited in order to see what it looks like with our new shots in between to establish the changes in the rooms. I have added in the shots and now need to cut them down so that they fit properly but I am already very happy with the establishing shots and I am glad that our teacher pointed it out to us because now our opening already looks so much better and now that we have changed it I can see how previously it actually made very little sense unlike now where the footage flows more and is easier for an audience to understand. I am leaving the titles for our group to edit though although I am changing the way in which they are laid out on a black screen and instead putting them over our shots which allows us with more time during the footage so we are able to lay down the new shots. I am leaving the font to the other two members of my group as firstly that is one of  Sareenas job to find different fonts and choose them according to our genre and also because I believer the font is something the whole group should have a say on. Whilst editing I have also listened to our choice in music over and over as it plays whilst I edit the clips and I have decided that it needs to be changed straight away as when listening to it the music has a very oriental sound and I don't believe that it goes with the opening and I know that the others agree that the music isn't a perfect match so we now also have to find some new music to include. Overall I am happy with the progress we have made in such a short space of time however I would change the way we have gone about this if I was able to as I don't believe our time at the start was organised very productively due to several reasons and now that has had a larger impact than we had imaged on the amount we needed to do so quickly despite the teachers reminders.

Teachers feed back on what we have done so far.

Alexandra, Sareena and I sat down with Mr Michie and showed him our footage edited so far. The feedback we received was fairly positive and was not negative towards the way in which film or the shots them self but instead the feedback was more towards the sequence in general and the way in which it flowed. He pointed out to use that the sequence didn't make a lot of sense in some areas with our character walking in and out of rooms. Me and Alexandra were glad that our teacher had pointed this out when he did because during filming the lack of entrances and exits within our film did worry us as we weren't to sure if the entrances and exits in to different rooms were established enough. Our teacher told us that it would be a good idea to go away and film again and this time to film the establishing shots so that the sequenced flowed more and for us to make it easier for the audience to understand. 
He were also told that we should change the font style as our teacher didn't feel it fitted in with the thriller/horror genre. I do agree with him that it didn't fit the genre correctly, although there was reason behind our font choice as we thought it would match the wedding which was being prepared for in our opening. However it does make a lot more sense to change the font as it makes it easier for an audience to establish the genre of the film and also now with the font matches the codes and conventions of our genre more efficiently. Our teacher also made us consider changing the font on black background and putting it over the sequence instead to allow for more footage to be laid . As a group we agreed that doing all of the following things that our teacher suggested will make our film a lot better. I am glad that we have finally sat down with a teacher and discussed the footage because as a group this was a large problem of ours and I do believe that until now that has held the footage back slightly and that is our fault entirely. 

Editing after our second attempt.

The problem which we had faced with the Mac and the conversion of files was not able to be resolved over the half term for several reasons, firstly, the teacher did not get the email which was sent to him during the half term to inform him about the situation with the mac. Secondly the problem on the Mac was unable to be resolved and we instead learnt that we needed a newer Mac in order to convert the files. The editing which wasn't done during the half term because of this issue did in fact set us back massively in terms of being able to re shoot any thing else that needed further changes. At the time however it did not feel like a massive set back however if I look back in terms of what could of been changed during this time there was a lot more that we could have accomplished I believe in terms of different shots. 

Editing the footage took a lot more time than I thought it was going to take as well, as editor for the group I found that it was often very hard to match different shots and it was also very hard to always keep the timing correct. Other problems I encountered were to do with the different transitions between shots and the lack of knowledge in terms of what transitions to use. Now I know I should of gone to the teacher in order to have gotten help with these such problems, however, I do believe that by doing it alone and figuring out how to use Premier Pro alone did help me in terms of learning how to edit footage and I believe that it will help greatly next time I need to edit footage. 

The footage I had edited I believe was good compared to the previous footage we had laid out and once I really started to edit the film begun to take shape and it was really great to watch the footage we had filmed come together into a film. I did get help on the footage from the other two members of school when taking the Mac in, in order to receive my groups opinion on what I had edited so far and if they wished to have anything changed like the speed, transitions, music and titles. 

I believe that my editing was good for a first proper attempt at it, I learnt a lot and am now able to edit even further. I do however think that there is still stuff which needs changing and we will be looking at this with the teacher in order to see what we need to do in order to change the footage as currently it seems as we are missing something.

Filming - second attempt.

Today we've filmed all of our footage again at Alexandra's house and this time we are much more positive about the footage. As this was our second attempt we were able to learn from previous mistakes and were able to make sure things such as continuity, was correct in each shot. We also were able to learn on the technical side of things how to use the equipment more efficiently so things such as the wonky camera angel were resolved using a different tri-pod and learning how to make sure it was at equal footing so the shot wasn't wonky.


After spending almost seven to eight hours filming this time I believe that we have taken much more care and consideration over what we were doing and hopefully it will mean that the outcome will be of much better quality than before. We have however come into an issue with the Mac we have taken out from the school in order to edit as we thought that to have a better quality of film we would use Alexandra's camera instead of the schools as this is exactly what another group have done with the same camera and we have seen how much the quality of their final footage improved. The problem however is that the Mac won't allow us to import the footage into quick time so that we are able to use it on premier pro and edit. This is due to the file format which on Alexandra's camera is AVI but for the mac we need MOV. Alexandra has emailed the teacher in hope that we are able to get a reply and hopefully we will be able to sort it out and edit before we get back to school otherwise this sets us back even further and will mean the amount we work will have to be double as we are wasting a lot of editing time during the week.

Re-shoot

Me and Alexandra sat down in order to look at the footage in order to see what needed to stay and what needed to go from the footage we had taken, this was mainly because Alexandra had previously looked at the footage on her own and was not completely happy. When we sat down and watched it I agreed with Alexandra that there was much that could be changed in order to produce a better quality of work. We realised that several things were wrong with the shots such as the movement of hands and feet which didn't match in each shot and therefore looked strange when laid out next to each other but also we realised that the shots were wonky and there was no way to change that other than to re-shoot. We have therefore decided that we are going to re-shoot all of the footage again on the 18th of February and hopefully by taking a mac home over half term will be able to get at least a good half if not all of the editing done over the week.

Filming - first attempt.

Filming for the first time was much harder than both Alexandra and I anticipated. First of all we had issues with where about in the room we wanted to shoot and this took us along time to figure out as we had to base it all around lights so that even if it got dark outside the lighting would stay the same in the footage in order to maintain a good quality. Secondly the setting up of the props took a lot longer than we thought as well as we assumed it would be easy to just put the props in place however we found that we didn't always agree with the positioning but also that when it came to filming certain things didn't look right and therefore we would have to change things around. The filming itself seems good so far on the camera but we have yet to put it onto a mac in order to see it laid out together. If we do have to film again then I believe that this first attempt has been positive as it will allow us to have more of an idea about what exactly we want from each shot as this time we were very unsure in places and had to take several shots from different angels rather than having one solid idea and this cost us a lot of time.

Planning - Animatic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4CyzPlnAHQ&feature=player_embedded


Our anaimatic was made in order for us to be able to see what our final opening would look like whilst in sequence rather than just looking at the pictures on the page. I don't believe that our animatic gave us a great in site into our final project as the pictures didn't move as we want them to, however, it did allow us to see how areas of the footage may not work and how perhaps certain things will need to be changed during our filming.